Fallout gets a post-nuclear board game from Fantasy Flight

Fallout: The Board Game takes much of what fans love about the Fallout franchise and condenses it into one portable package. Board game company Fantasy Flight clearly realized that shortcoming, because it announced a Fallout: a Post-Nuclear Board Game today, with a modular hex-based board making up the Wasteland and card decks created to simulate Fallout's roleplaying decisions. "One to four players (solo play is an option) select one of five playable explorers, from a savvy Wastelander to a stout member of the Brotherhood of Steel". According to the developer, it's inspired specifically by Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. These figures will attempt to gain influence in different scenarios by teaming up with factions, gathering allies, acquiring weapons and armor, and leveling up through a version of the "SPECIAL" progression system from the video games. Instead, they are making a board game, a retro decision for a game series that comes with a quasi-retro sheen. "Your choice has definitive consequences", Game Informer's Matt Miller writes.

Fallout 4 was released nearly two years ago, and in the absence of any news regarding Fallout 5, Fallout: The Board Game should serve as a decent time waster until Bethesda makes the long-awaited announcement. "In one instance, you might choose to free some super mutants from imprisonment".

Thanks to this system, even a second playthrough of the same scenario can have drastically different encounters, quest outcomes, and opportunities for alliances and enemies. Maps are randomly assembled out of hex-shaped cards, with a few known locations at the start, but where you go and how you explore is your choice.

As of yet, Fantasy Flight Games has not nailed down an exact release date for Fallout:The Board Game, nor has it offered up a price for the product, but the company has promised it will release in "Q4 of 2017", which will likely be sometime around the holiday season.